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Dead Serious It Career Advice


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Guys:

 

I have been painfully separated from my family (Thai wife and lovely, wonderful 6 yo daughter) for about a year now. I'm back in the USA.

 

I WAS in BKK teaching (with my family) for 8 years, but seriously burned-out on it. I made the difficult decision to come back to the USA to try and re-up my skill set in IT (I really enjoyed it and should have stuck with it) and try to come back to BKK through a western company. I wish I had done this 8 years ago.

 

I AM currently studying for a bunch of IT certifications. I'm working on my A+, then will get my Net+. Then I'll cap it all off with a MCITP (gotta get a MCTS first).

 

MY GOALS ARE: To become employable in BKK again and be reunited with my family.

 

I have a BBA in Finance and Banking and a BS in Business Computer Information Systems. My 4 years in IT network support/hardware hasn't been since 2003 and I have NO certifications (yet). I won't be ready to return to Thailand (finish my education here in the USA) for probably 18-24 months or so.

 

From everything I've ever culled off this board about "many-a-member's careers", I believe that by far my best bet will be to get hired on in the USA, or through a foreign company with offices in BKK, and THEN do an "internal transfer" through the same company into their BKK office. I would also need to be "near expert" level since many companies will hire cheaper Thai IT staff to do the low and mid-level stuff.

 

Q1: Is the above assumption right--that this is my "best bet"?

If not, what is your advice?

 

I would really appreciate the input of you IT pros in BKK regarding the following:

 

I have NO IDEA which area of MCITP/MCTS to specialize in. There's: windows server, mobile, embedded, windows client, virtualization, visual studio, system center, SQL server, sharepoint server, project server, lync server, and exchange server. The few job postings I've been able to find specify "Thai national", which means, of course, that I"m looking at the wrong job boards. Each area of specialization is "so specific" that I feel compelled to try and pick the one that has the greatest job demand.

 

Q2: Of the above-mentioned MCTS/MCITP specialties, which ONE would you recommend to give me the greatest chance of landing a job in BKK?

 

Q3: Which headhunters/job-search boards would you recommend?

 

Q4: Seriously, what other advice might you have? No sarcasm or wise-cracks, please, as this is terribly painful for me. Also, I'm not working now, just focusing on my school, but I may take a part-time IT job, to start accumulating recent IT work experience.

 

All I want to do is spend each passing day with that little girl of mine. She'll be 7 yo in just a few weeks and I'm missing such an important part of her life. If there was any way I could have borne the ever-increasing depression caused by teaching, I would still be in the classroom. I would be horribly miserable, but at least my family would still be together.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

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Hi,

 

I think you might have a hard time finding a job in the server side of things. There are a LOT of Thai network guys out there, and some of them are not that bad. As you said, if you go this route you will have to be VERY good. Of course the downside of that is also immediately that you will likely be way overqualified for most jobs and will miss out in favor of a cheaper guy.

 

One of my friends had a job in this field (IT networking), lost it and it took him 2.5 years!!! to find another similar job with roughly similar pay. Of course, it didn't really help he lived in Pattaya away from a lot of the networking.

 

One thing I have noticed is that there is a severe lack of good programmers in Thailand. While there are loads and loads of people calling themselves programmers, most of them lack the skills to think logically or outside of the box and require constant hand-holding. Many of them are all but useless.

 

So, no idea how your programming skills are, but this might be a better area for you to explore.

 

As for how to get a job. Getting a job in the US and being posted here would be great of course, but to be honest, I think you can pretty much forget about that.

Next best would possibly being hired locally by a large international corporation. They could provide you with room to grow so to speak.

 

I personally have not had any luck finding jobs through any of the jobsites and instead have found mine through word-of-mouth and friends. Obviously this is a LOT harder to do if you are not in Thailand/Bangkok.

 

Anyway, sorry for the negativity. I'll keep my ears open for you and good luck!

 

Sanuk!

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Yup - one of our best networking guys sold up in Oz, went back to the UK and spent the next 12 months unemployed while his wife and kids tried to settle into a country they hadnt grown up in. Ended up back in Brisbane looking for work, including an attempt to get his old job back with the company I was working for. That was the late 90s/early noughties - I can only imagine that its worse now, thanks to Greek banks and Irish developers.

 

Here in Oz, 2500 workers have been told the company which pays them is insolvent courtesy of managerial mismanagement - other than mining in 50 deg C, the Lucky Country has nothing. :blink:

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It may be a long shot but try thinking outside the box. Network solutions are becoming more prevalent amongst computer control systems and I know that Honeywell, Invensys and Yokogawa are now hiring network specialists in this field.

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I would be very surprised if any MNC has an expat IT person in any capacity in Thailand or any other SEA country, except maybe Singapore. All levels up to the local management are nationals. Upper level management is provided from home country.

 

Agree with Mekong, best bet is to go into engineering/design in control systems.

TH

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you gentlemen for responding so quickly. I waited to see if there were any late responses. If I had it to do all over again I probably would have majored in engineering. Those guys seem to get job offers everywhere.

 

I'll keep my eyes open and browse periodically to see what kind--if any-- MS specialties are being offered to farangs. I am curious as to what kind of programmers (which languages, platforms, etc...) are available for foreigners. Clearly web-based and the fast-growing cloud and mobile stuff, I suppose. Perhaps php, .Net, sql, maybe java etc...I'd really have to put a LOT of energy into developing my programming skills, but I am certainly capable of it. I've had C++, java, SQL, COBOL, and HTML exposure, so I could probably pickup the necessary skills in relatively short time.

 

Thanks again!

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Hi,

 

I am curious as to what kind of programmers (which languages, platforms, etc...) are available for foreigners. Clearly web-based and the fast-growing cloud and mobile stuff, I suppose. Perhaps php, .Net, sql, maybe java etc...I'd really have to put a LOT of energy into developing my programming skills, but I am certainly capable of it. I've had C++, java, SQL, COBOL, and HTML exposure, so I could probably pickup the necessary skills in relatively short time.

 

If you are planning to learn new programming languages I would say concentrate on those for mobile devices (Xcode for iPad/iPhone and Java for Android). We've so far not had much luck finding people who are skilled in Xcode. Actually, we have trouble finding skilled programmers in any language. Thais seem to be pretty crap at it mostly, guess the skills needed (logic and being able to think outside of the box) are not high on the list of skills taught here.

 

Sanuk!

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Hi,

 

 

 

If you are planning to learn new programming languages I would say concentrate on those for mobile devices (Xcode for iPad/iPhone and Java for Android). We've so far not had much luck finding people who are skilled in Xcode. Actually, we have trouble finding skilled programmers in any language. Thais seem to be pretty crap at it mostly, guess the skills needed (logic and being able to think outside of the box) are not high on the list of skills taught here.

 

Sanuk!

One of the rules of the recruiting game is that you have to GET THE WORD OUT that you are looking for people, with or without certain specific background.

 

You might find that someone you know would be open to considering a new opportunity halfway around the planet.

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